TUCSON- University of Arizona Police have released a composite sketch of the man they say assaulted a female on Tumamoc Hill Monday morning.

According to University of Arizona Police Sergeant Filbert Barrera, the female was at Tumamoc Hill around 7:30 a.m., when a Hispanic male ran into the female, knocking her to the ground. The man then attempted to pin her to the ground.

Barrera said the female was able to get away from the man and yell for help.

The suspect is in his 40s, between 5 feet 7 inches and 5 feet 9 inches tall, and weighs between 150 and 170 pounds.

He was last seen wearing light brown shorts and a grey hooded sweatshirt.

Gezawa (Nigeria) (AFP) - A 14-year-old Nigerian girl accused of murdering her 35-year-old husband by putting rat poison in his food could face the death penalty, Nigerian prosecutors said Thursday.

The trial of Wasila Tasi'u, from a poor northern Nigeria family, has sparked a heated debate on the role of underage marriage in the conservative Muslim region, especially whether an adolescent girl can consent to be a bride.

Prosecutors at the High Court in Gezawa, outside Nigeria's second city of Kano, filed an amended complaint that charged Tasi'u with one count of murder over the killing of Umar Sani two weeks after their April wedding in the village of Unguwar Yansoro.

Lead prosecutor Lamido Abba Soron-Dinki said that if convicted, the charge is "punishable with death" and indicated the state would seek the maximum penalty.

Nigeria is not known to have executed a juvenile offender since 1997, when the country was ruled by military dictator Sani Abacha, according to Human Rights Watch.

Tasi'u entered the court wearing a cream-coloured hijab and was escorted by two policemen.

Brides attend a wedding feast at the Kano state governor's office after taking part in a mass weddin …

Her parents, who have condemned their daughter's alleged act, were in the public gallery -- the first time the three were in the same room since Tasi'u's arrest in April, her legal representatives said.

The English-language charge sheet was translated into Hausa for the accused by the court clerk.

Tasi'u refused to answer when asked if she understood the charges.

The case was adjourned for 30 minutes so the charges could be better explained to the defendant, but when the alleged offences were read again Tasi'u stayed silent, turned her head to the wall and broke down in tears.

"The court records (that) she pleads not guilty," Judge Mohammed Yahaya said, apparently regarding her silence as equal to a denial of the charges and adjourned the case until November 26.

Activists, including in Nigeria's mainly Christian south, have called for Tasi'u's immediate release, saying she should be rehabilitated as a victim and noting the prospect that she was raped by the man she married.

But in the north, Islamic law operates alongside the secular criminal code, a hybrid system that has complicated the question of marital consent.

The affected families have denied that Tasi'u was forced into marriage, arguing that girls across the impoverished region marry at 14 and that Tasi'u and Sani followed the traditional system of courtship.

According to Nigeria's marriage act, anyone under 21 can marry provided they have parental consent and so evidence of an agreement between Tasi'u and her father Tasiu Mohammed could undermine claims of a forced union.

But defence lawyer Hussaina Aliyu has insisted the case is not a debate about the role of youth marriage in a Muslim society.

Instead, she has argued that under criminal law a 14-year-old cannot be charged with murder in a high court and has demanded that the case be moved to the juvenile system.

Nigeria defines the age of adulthood as 17 but the situation is less clear in the 12 northern states under Islamic law, where courts theoretically have the right to consider people under 17 as legally responsible.

Guidelines for how courts should blend Islamic and secular legal codes have not been well defined.

Posted on: 30th October, 2014

HRANA News Agency – The family of Seddigh Mohammadi, a Sunni prisoner suffering from psychological illnesses awaiting execution in Iran, say they found bruising and evidence of beating on his body during a recent visit to the prison.

According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), the family had finally been allowed to visit Seddigh Mohammadi in Ghezel Hesar prison last week, after a year of being prohibited from visiting the prison.

During the visit, during which Seddigh was separated from the family behind glass, the family noticed that Seddigh’s legs were bruised and one of his teeth had been broken.

The family also said that Seddigh Mohammadi had been forced to remain in solitary confinement for 40 days without reason.

The family complained about his injuries and suspected beatings to the Head of Unit 2 of the prison, Hossein Ghadami, as well as the Head of Security, Iraj Haghighi. However, following threats from Prison Security towards Seddigh Mohammadi, the family was forced to withdraw their complaints.

Seddigh Mohammadi was previously beaten by prison guards before being transferred to solitary confinement on 12 August 2014, after he complained about prison guards who had insulted his Sunni religious beliefs. The attack in August left him with severe bruising to his body and a wound to his head.

Seddigh Mohammadi, originally from Javanroud in the Kermanshah province of Iran, was arrested in June 2010, before being sentenced to death after being convicted of Moharabeh ‘enmity against God’.

The Supreme Court originally overturned his death sentence, along with that of another Sunni prisoner, Hadi Hosseini, in December 2013 due to their psychological illnesses. The move came after the men ended a 7-week long hunger strike, with officials promising to provide a retrial in the Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj.

However, the men did not receive retrials as promised, and in May 2014 the Supreme Court confirmed their death sentences once again. Their cases were sent to the Office for the Implementation of Sentences, and the men are at risk of execution.

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants executed at least 220 Iraqis in retaliation against a tribe’s opposition to their takeover of territory west of Baghdad, security sources and witnesses said.

Two mass graves were discovered on Thursday containing some of the 300 members of the Sunni Muslim Albu Nimr tribe that ISIS had seized this week. The captives, men aged between 18 and 55, had been shot at close range, witnesses said.

The bodies of more than 70 Albu Nimr men were dumped near the town of Hit in the Sunni heartland Anbar province, according to witnesses who said most of the victims were members of the police or an anti-ISIS militia called Sahwa (Awakening).

“Early this morning we found those corpses and we were told by some ISIS militants that ‘those people are from Sahwa, who fought your brothers the ISIS, and this is the punishment of anybody fighting ISIS’,” a witness said.

The insurgents had ordered men from the tribe to leave their villages and go to Hit, 130 km (80 miles) west of Baghdad, promising them “safe passage”, tribal leaders said. They were then seized and shot.

A mass grave near the city of Ramadi, also in Anbar province, contained 150 members of the same tribe, security officials said.

The Awakening militia were established with the encouragement of the United States to fight al Qaeda during the U.S. “surge” offensive of 2006-2007.

Washington, which no longer has ground forces in Iraq but is providing air support for Iraqi forces, hopes the government can rebuild the shaky alliance with Sunni tribes, particularly in Anbar which is now mostly under the control of ISIS, a group that follows an ultra-hardline version of Sunni Islam.

Sheikh Naeem al-Ga’oud, one of the leaders of the Albu Nimir tribe, said: “The Americans are all talk and no action.”

ISIS was on the march in Anbar this year even before it seized much of northern Iraq in June. As the government and fighters from the autonomous Kurdish region have begun to recapture territory in the north, ISIS has pressed its advances in Anbar, coming ever closer to Baghdad.

One hundred workers at the Phase 17 and 18 Southern Pars Oil and Gas projects stopped work on Wednesday October 29 to protest for the payment of four months worth of overdue wages.

ILNA reports that the workers have not been paid wages and benefits since July, and the protesters stopped work with prior warning to the employer to demand the immediate payment of their overdue wages.

The report indicates that the 100 protesters in fact represent 2,000 workers employed through 10 contracting companies to work on the same project.

Workers indicate that throughout the four-month delay in the payment of their wages, they have continued to labour on the project, even in the punishing heat of 60 degrees Celsius.

The report indicates that the workers’ wages range anywhere from 800 thousand toumans to six million toumans.

BAGHDAD: Islamic State group militants lined up 30 men in western Iraq and shot them dead Wednesday, an official and residents said, the latest mass killing carried out by the group since its advance across the country.The slayings, on a main street in the Al-Bakir district in the town of Hit, targeted Sunnis tribal fighters allied with the government and members of the security forces that the extremists captured when they overran the town, the official and the residents said.The militants first paraded the men through town, shouting through loudspeakers that the captured men were apostates who fought against them, residents said. The extremists then lined up the men and shot them dead with assault rifles, residents said.A photograph obtained by The Associated Press showed a line of the men’s bodies by a small pool of blood as onlookers walked by.Anbar provincial council chairman Sabah Karhout said those killed were captured when the Islamic State group overran the town, located about 140 kilometers (85 miles) west of Baghdad, earlier this month.Karhout called the slayings “a crime against humanity” and demanded more international support for the Sunni tribes fighting the militants in Anbar.Iraq is in its worst crisis since the 2011 withdrawal of US troops as Sunni militant groups led by the Al-Qaeda breakaway Islamic State group have seized a third of the country. In one lightning offensive over the summer, Iraq’s US-trained army and security forces melted away as the extremists advanced and captured key cities and towns in country’s north.In Iraq and along with areas in eastern Syria, the militants have declared a self-styled caliphate and imposed their own harsh interpretation of Shariah law. They also have targeted the country’s religious minorities, including Christians and others, killing hundreds and forcing hundreds of thousands to leave their homes.A US-led coalition is now targeting Islamic State extremists with airstrikes. US Central Command said the coalition launched six airstrikes in Iraq over Tuesday and Wednesday using jet fighters and drones, hitting targets near Fallujah and Sinjar.In other violence Wednesday, police said a roadside bomb exploded near an army patrol in a town just south of Baghdad, killing three soldiers and wounding seven. A later bomb blast on a commercial street in Baghdad’s eastern district of Ur killed two people and wounded eight, police said.Medical officials confirmed the casualties. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists, while the residents of Hit requested their names not be used out of fears of reprisal.

COCULA, Mexico – Experts with the Mexican Attorney General’s Office are scouring an area near the town of Cocula for the bodies of the 43 students who disappeared Sept. 26 near the nearby city of Iguala, journalists managed to learn on Tuesday.

The officials from the so-called PGR started working on Tuesday at the dump located in a hard-to-access zone about 10 km. (6 mi.) from Cocula and half an hour from Iguala, which is in the southern state of Guerrero.

The dump covers some 40 square meters (430 sq. feet), half of which shows signs of having been burned.

A dozen forensic experts have cordoned off the area and placed little orange flags at certain spots in the dump, presumably to designate places to dig.

The AG’s office came to the site after four members of the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel said they had participated in the students’ disappearance.

The area is being heavily guarded by security forces and is being searched using trained sniffer dogs.

Mexican AG Jesus Murillo said Monday that the experts are seeking evidence that will corroborate the statements of the arrested cartel members that the site figured in the students’ disappearance.

He said that two of the men arrested Tuesday by federal agents said that the local police handed over the students to them and the other two admitted having been lookouts for the criminal group on the night of the disappearances.

Murillo said last week at a press conference that Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca ordered police to attack the students to prevent them from disrupting an event that night at which his wife, head of the local family services office, was to give a speech.

Six people – three of them students – were killed and 25 wounded in the police attack on buses transporting the young people, but 43 others were captured by police and – evidently – later turned over to a local drug gang who were told they were members of Los Rojos, a rival criminal group.

BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS - Yadira Garcia, 35, has been ordered to prison following her six counts of conviction for making false statements on firearm records, announced United States Attorney Kenneth Magidson along with Robert W. Elder, special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). A federal jury convicted Garcia, of Alamo, July 22, 2014, following two days of trial and approximately 30 minutes of deliberation.

Today, U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen, who presided over the trial, sentenced Garcia to 18 months in federal prison for each count to run concurrently. She will also serve three years of supervised release following completion of the prison term.

At trial, the jury heard that in August 2013, Garcia purchased five assault rifles over a six-day period from two federally licensed firearms dealers located in Harlingen and McAllen and paid more than $5,000 in cash. Within the same week, Garcia attempted to buy two more rifles and was denied sale due to the suspicion of straw purchasing the firearms.

In connection with the purchases, Garcia executed three different Firearms Transaction Records (4473 Forms) which must be filled out when a person purchases a firearm from a Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL). On all three forms, Garcia certified she was the actual buyer and provided an address in Pharr.

Garcia admitted to agents that she purchased the rifles and claimed she had done so using bingo winnings. However, Garcia gave inconsistent statements regarding the whereabouts of those firearms. She initially claimed they were with a relative, then changed her story and indicated they were stashed with a friend whose name, location and contact information she could not provide. Garcia purchased three AR-15 and two AK-47 style rifles, considered “weapons of choice” by drug trafficking organizations in Mexico. One of the AK-47s was recovered by Mexican law enforcement in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico on Aug. 27, 2013, only 20 days after Garcia purchased it. Garcia admitted she lied about her current residence address on her signed 4473 forms.

Garcia was permitted to remain on bond and voluntarily surrender to the U.S. Marshals Service next month.

ATF investigated. Assistant United States Attorneys David A. Lindenmuth and Carrie Wirsing are prosecuting the case.

The head of Parliament’s legal commission announced that Parliament is looking at a heavier punishment for smuggling alcoholic beverages by adding prison terms to the existing fines.

Abolfazl Aboutorabi told Khaneh Mellat that the fines, which reach as high as 100 million rials, may now be combined with a prison term of six months to a year.

The head of Iran’s social workers association announced that according to security forces, 80 million litres of alcohol were smuggled into the country in 2011, with police discovering and confiscating 20 million litres of that.

Security forces also report that 200,000 Iranians are addicted to alcohol. Consuming alcohol is prohibited in Iran; however, some reports indicate that 200,000 people are involved in the country’s alcoholic beverage market.

The man appointed to coordinate the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) says Kurdish Peshmerga fighters will thwart the militant group’s attempts to seize control of the Syrian city of Kobane.

“We don’t think Kobane is about to fall in the hands of ISIS, the entrance of Peshmerga fighters will prevent that,” John Allen, the retired U.S. general tasked by President Barack Obama with overseeing the anti-ISIS campaign, told Al Arabiya News Channel in an exclusive interview.

More than 150 Kurdish Peshmerga fighters crossed the border to Turkey on Tuesday, heading for Syria to support their Syrian Kurdish brethren in their fight against ISIS in Kobane.

The fighters will be battling ISIS on the ground, as the international coalition carries out air strikes targeting the militants.

There are concerns that ISIS, the extremist group that seized swathes of land in Iraq and Syria, is nearing the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi said American, British and Iranian advisors were helping his country’s security forces against the militant group.

Despite the rivalry between the United States and Iran, Gen. Allen did not reject Iran playing role in Iraq to counter the ISIS threat in that country.

“Iran has a role to play in Iraq and we welcome any positive steps taken by it,” he said.

However, he said that the coalition has not decided yet on whether to arm Iraqi tribes, which have joined the fight against ISIS.

“There is no decision regarding arming Iraqi tribes so far.”

Commenting on the Syrian conflict, Allen stressed that “the future of Syria will not be with Assad.”

Turkish emergency workers were Wednesday trying to reach 18 miners who were trapped when their shaft was engulfed by water, amid growing fears that they may have drowned.The accident in the southern province of Karaman was the latest to hit the disaster-prone Turkish mining industry after 301 workers were killed in May in an explosion at a mine in Soma in the west of the country.

The catastrophe has cast a huge shadow over Wednesday's celebrations for the annual Republic Day which marks the foundation of modern Turkey in 1923 out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would be travelling to the scene and would cancel a planned lavish reception for the holiday scheduled to be held at his new presidential palace in Ankara.

But he insisted that there was still a chance of finding the miners alive.“Our expectations and our hopes have not been lost. Our friends and ministers are continuing to work and make efforts there,” he said in Ankara in comments broadcast by state television.

The 18 miners were believed to be trapped in a flooded shaft over 300 metres (1,000 feet) underground. At least 34 miners were underground at the time of the accident Tuesday but 16 escaped unscathed early on.

Rescue workers have been seeking to reduce the water levels by pumping out the water with a gigantic pipe. But the levels had continued to rise until finally starting to fall in the night.

Energy Minister Taner Yildiz confirmed late Tuesday that there had been no contact with any of the trapped miners.

“Time is against us,” he acknowledged.

The accident took place when a build-up of water caused the walls of the shaft to collapse but officials have been unable to explain what caused the accumulation of water.

The government has sought to show it is on top of the situation after the Soma disaster sparked a wave of fury against Erdogan, who was accused of indifference to the plight of the victims.

He notoriously appeared then to play down the tragedy by saying such catastrophes were part of the job and comparing it to mining disasters in early industrial 19th-century Britain.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

A Jordanian mother reportedly strangled three of her children to death in the capital Amman on Saturday, as the motive behind the murders remains unknown.

Security sources told Agence France-Presse that the 40-year-old woman strangled two of her daughters - one aged three and another aged five - and a seven year-old son while they were asleep.

The woman’s two other daughters managed to run away from the house, and sought help from the building’s guard.

When police arrived at the crime scene, the woman was arrested then transferred to the hospital due to her being in shock. She will later be interrogated by police after her condition becomes more stable.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh was arrested in front of the interior ministry in Tehran during a protest against acid throwing, her husband Reza Khandan reported on his Facebook page.

“Today after a sit-in in front of the Lawyer’s Supervisory Board, Nasrin accompanied a group of her peers to join a protest in front of the interior ministry in support of women assaulted with acid and against the lack of government action. Upon their return, they were all arrested and they were all released after being identified. But Nasrin remains in custody without any judicial order.”

Giti Pourfazel, Abbas Jamali and Peymon Aref and Farid Rohani were reportedly some of the other lawyers present at the protest.

Reports from Tehran indicate riot police were highly visible along the main arteries of the city. The political deputy of Tehran security forces has been quoted as saying: “We are also very concerned about the acid throwing in Isfahan and condemn such action; however, there can be no demonstrations in Tehran without first getting permits.”

In recent weeks, a number of women have been assaulted with acid on the streets of Isfahan, and while the authorities maintain they are hard at work identifying the perpetrator(s), the public has been showing its outrage with mass gathering in Isfahan and Tehran.

Several Iranian men arrested on suspicion of committing horrific acid attacks on women have been released due to insufficient evidence, the interior minister revealed Saturday.

The attacks in Isfahan, Iran's top tourist destination, have shocked the public and provoked a major protest there Wednesday from citizens who demanded better security and action over such violent crimes.

Reports on social networks have claimed that the victims were doused on the face and body because they were not properly veiled. They were targeted by assailants on motorcycles.

Under Islamic law in force in Iran since the 1979 revolution, women must wear loose clothing, known as hijab, that covers the head and neck and which conceals their hair.

But many women now push the boundaries by wearing a headscarf and thin coat rather than the chador, a traditional black garment that covers the body from head to toe.

Justice officials previously said that four men had been arrested in connection with the Isfahan attacks.

But Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, quoted on state television's website, said those in custody had been freed.

He also denounced what he called “a foreign media campaign” to link the attacks to hijab, saying that acid attack victims are usually targeted for reasons of “personal motive or revenge”.

Prosecutor general Ebrahim Raissi, meanwhile, vowed that the attackers would be caught and dealt with, even if the victims were to grant clemency.

“These crimes are unforgivable. While victims can grant forgiveness, there is no way we will give up rights of the state against those who caused fear in the population,” Raissi said.

“They will be severely punished. We will not allow people, under any pretext, to disrupt security,” he added.

Raissi's comments appeared linked to a prominently reported acid attack in Iran in 2011 where the victim later allowed her assailant to pay her compensation in exchange for leniency.

The attacks in Isfahan come after a new bill in parliament proposed greater powers for morality police and volunteer militias to ensure compliance with hijab.

However President Hassan Rowhani, who has been under pressure from hardline MPs to pursue a tougher police stand on the veil, on Wednesday appeared to caution against harsher penalties.

“We should not be overly focused on one issue, such as bad hijab, to prevent vice,” he said, alluding to the Islamic duty to promote virtue.

Wednesday's protest in Isfahan came as the acid attacks dominated the front pages of Iran's newspapers, and as Health Minister Hassan Hashemi visited one victim at a city hospital.

The woman, covered in bandages, gave a harrowing account of how the attack has disfigured her and left her without sight in her right eye.